big giant circles

GLIB ATTACK Why say it when Vig has said it already? No but I'll add a few words here. Let me emphasize that this isn't a bad submission. Especially a first sub. But with such a cookie-cutter formula, this style of music, especially in the VGM remixing scene is becoming a little trite. The key to really good techno/trance is to try to keep the song from being so predictable. Throw the listener for a good loop or two. Do something unexpected. Keeps your work from sounding so hackneyed. Again, not a bad first sub. (NO)

heh, when we cut out the length, nobody's going to get the alexhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh bit. anyway. really interesting and uniquely dark take on stinkybush sonata, or whatever. the opening piano reminded me of the caverns or whatever the level was in Symphony of the Night--the part where you fight the dog with 3 heads--been a while since I've played that, so I don't remember. Anyway. Would it have killed you to bump up the master volume a couple notches before your final render? You barely broke 6 DB on the peak meter until the very very end, i think it got a little higher. Oboe is definitely too quiet. Basically just needs some balancing issues, like Vig and Larry have said. Otherwise, I'm highly impressed with the direction you took this one. Resubmit this or else. NO

Quite simply put, your ambitions outreach your abilities. Nice effort, and I'm sure this was fun to play, but you've got to realize that the recording quality is far below OCR standards, and there's more than a few missed notes on the lead. I don't mean to sound like a jerk, especially when I probably can't play electric lead guitar any better, but that's also why you won't hear me submitting a remix where I'm *shredding* the lead melody. Keep at it, practice practice practice and all that, and come back when you're fingers are a little more adept, and you have some better recording equipment. NO

Cool concept. Cool ideas, too. I dig the reverse guitar part intro thing, as well. Wholeheartedly agree that the lead is terrible. Performance is aight, but the mix and effects are pretty awful. Sounds like it's played on a cheap amp through a headset mic, or something. In fact, the mixing of the entire track is pretty amateur. Wouldn't hurt to hit up the WIP forum for some feedback exclusively dealing with just that. Otherwise, the lead does hit a sour note here or there--or at least goes a little flat/sharp at times, usually on the bends, but I could look past all that if the sound sounded a little better than a garage-band-jam. Otherwise, pretty cool. This would be cool to hear live. Very mellow. Resubmit this. NO

A little too much repetition, not enough control of the track. Seems like the loops kind of invaded the track rather than enhancing it. And it's pretty heavy on mid-low's I'd say. Wouldn't have hurt to get some sizzle and maybe some more melodic bassline action going. Not terrible by any stretch, and of course, I like the melancholy vibe, but I think the mastering needs work, and I never really heard the melody effectively interpreted and represented in the remix. NO

Ha, Larry's gonna punch me in the balls, but I voted YES on the last one, and dammit, I like this one too. It definitely doesn't blow my mind in any extreme sense, but it's fairly progressive in a simple sort of way, and I love the vibe. Pretty clean and balanced, as well. I can definitely see why Larry gripes that the mix "fails to ignite" as it were, and I do wish there'd been at least one time where the mix completely jumps out and kicks you in the face, but though it never did, it's pleasant enough to listen to. Inappropriately named, but still cool. IGNITE (yes)

short and sweet vote here: great partwriting - but samples suck. i would be fine with overlooking the sample quality if there was more effort to humanize, but there's really no dynamic contrast per channel. for example, rather than just adding the same reverse cymbal swell on top of your other instruments, why not actually make the instruments themselves crescendo? again, i think awesome samples with minimal attention to dynamics might have worked, or great attention to dynamics while sticking with crappy samples, but after a few listens, it still sounds too General MIDI-ish. Dang shame. Otherwise, the arrangement itself is very pretty. There's plenty of remixers who get great sounds out of crummy/free samples. Maybe bug Shariq sometime and ask him how he does it. Resubmit this thing. NO

gonna have to agree with vig. i'm not really hearing any of the aforementioned gripes as being enough to withhold this from being posted. i dunno. seems pretty slick to me. i don't listen to much hip hop, but the staggered brass seems to fit pretty well. zyko's rapping has also progressed--this is pretty well done all across the board. again, while i can partially agree with the hangups, i don't think it's enough to keep this one from a thumb's up. *EDIT* (see other post) I do have a gripe with the balance, that I'd like fixed first. YES (conditional)

Happy bday man! Hope it's a good day!

dis mix is tite, yo.

Thanks for the wishes, all. Was a good day

Yo Dave, hope you're having a great day! Here's to many happy returns!

Not a huge fan of the Magus theme, but what can ya do? This isn't bad stuff. Pretty cool interpretation. I really liked the slower portion, and the flute and what not. Samples are pretty bleh for parts of this. Guitar is pretty awful. This track is awfully muddy. Go ahead and splurge and pay Andy his rates and let him master this for you. (Seriously--he's pretty keen on that stuff). Anyway. Ending is way too abrupt. And though I liked the slower portion, it seemed like it was full of sonic gaps. Texture was thin as a Dorito with none of the flavor. Definitely keep at this one, like Liontamer suggested, and maybe resubmit after you've worked a few of the kinks out. NO

holy shit, 9 minutes? I'm not even 10 seconds into the track, and I'm already feeling iffy. Why? Because you've encoded at 80 kbps, which is borderline auto-reject territory right there. Since the track sound OK otherwise, I suppose it's only fair to *officially* vote. K, like those before me have declared, 2+ minutes of generic trance is a little too far out for an OCR-qualified track. Especially one that's 9 dang minutes long. You could have cut out most of that and got closer to a far more respectable 7 minutes and encoded at a better quality (say it with me: VBR) At any rate. Cymbals/hats have been eaten up by the encoding. I hate that. Woah, we got vocals. Guess they're ok. Damn, Larry--how the hell do you research these things? Anyway. Yeah, I tell you what. This could definitely get on here with some pretty simple fixes. Namely: - Cut out/minimal as much of the non-source stuff as you can to get this a little closer to maybe 6 minutes AT THE MOST. That will enable you to: - Encode higher quality. 'Nuff said. - I'd be thrilled to hear a little more interesting synth leads. Trance is cool, but the textures just wear thin. Innovate. That's pretty much my primary gripes. Generic, but fairly solid in terms of quality (with the exception of the lenght vs. encoding, etc.) For now, NO

Pretty riff, but this is way too repetitive. If you're going to make a slow song, try to not let it get boring. Don't mean that to sound mean, but I kept skipping ahead in the track to see if it ever really picked up energy. Never did. Seemed to me like the volume was increasing and decreasing throughout the track. It's one thing to have dynamic variation, but it seemed a little awkward. Bells are pretty, and seashore noises are OK, I guess, but the track is definitely the kind that would put me to sleep in minutes were I listening to this in bed. I thought the adaptation of the melody was pretty good, but the song just lacks a hook. Yes, even mellow tracks can have a good hook. NO

Very similar to the other Shinobi mix you subbed that I just voted on moments ago. Or bearing similarities, rather. Here's the skinny on this one. It also bears a cool synth intro (reminded me of something from Deus Ex). Drums come in really dry, and don't really add any energy to the track. I'm not saying they need to be all spastic and D&B-ish--I'm cool with a mellow loop. But as Larry pointed out, they sound a little placeholderish. Wasn't a big fan of the monoglide lead synth from :57 - 1:25. Again, it just seemed a little too dry to blend with the rest of the track. I would have enjoyed some more sweeping/phasing FX on the lead as well. Maybe some cross-panning once in a while. Again, track is over before I really feel it achieved it's full potential. Too bad again, because I really like you're ideas. I just think the delivery leaves the listener wanting more--in the non-preferred way. Not "Wow, that was so incredible, I wish I could have had more!" type way, but rather the "Hmm, well, it started out cool. I wish there would have been more to it." Oh well. keep at it, bro. I think you've got tons of potential, and I really dig your style. It's just a little under-polished at this point. Work on this one some more, and resubmit, aight? NO

As Larry would say - "Where's the beef?" Introductory riffs were cool as hell, but then when the drums kicked in, it just didn't sustain the momentum the opening synths were building. "This definitely would have been a shoo-in 5-6 years ago" Cool little electric blurbs, and there's some cool filtering going on, but the track is way too underdeveloped at this point. This could be a really awesome piece, but it's way too short and meatless at this point. I'd love to hear you put some more into it, expand upon the drums, perhaps rethink the lead synth, (a but underwhelming compared to the other presets) and I think I'd be a lot more inclined to vote in favor. Here's to hopeing you'll resubmit. NO

Pretty generic and predictable stylistically, but the execution is pretty clean. I have no gripes with the production that are worth mentioning. This may be cookie cutter trance, but it's notably different enough from the original in terms of arrangement to win that portion of my vote. Though the soundscape is really cookie-cutter, and not particularly innovative - detuned, gated synths and the standard 4 on the floor beat Jonathon mentioned (and yeah, the super cheesy samples) I really can't think of an outstanding reason not to pass this. Definitely not the most groundbreaking or amazing piece I've ever heard, but it does have decent energy and is otherwise a pretty decent track. Hope the rest of the vote works out for you, Jonathon. YES

guitars aren't too bad. the rest really leaves a lot to be desired. maybe it's just me, but the bass sounds really out of tune. almost sounded a whole half step flat at times. mixing/mastering is very lacking in sheen. guitars overpower most everything else in the track. drums and other midi instruments just can't keep up. the arrangement is borderline pushing this one into the "cover" realm, and of course, we're not looking for mere covers here, but a little more of your own flavor. for all i know, you may have just taken a pre-written midi file and played guitar over-top of it. not bad, and this track does have some great potential and energy to be a great rock track, but touch up on your production techniques, and perhaps rework the actual theme a little more, so it's not TOO similar to the original underneath the shredding licks. not bad, but not quite OCR ready yet. NO

Definitely not a bad track here. And like every other submission I've voted on, let me apologize to the remixer for such a ridiculously long time to get the voting process done. Busy and preoccupied as we may be, there's little to no excuse for our votes taking so long to come out. That being said, I've been fairly impressed with this one, which is one reason my vote took so long. Usually I procrastinate the crud out of mixes where I'm closer to the middle than definitely YES or NO. I'm going to make this pretty short and sweet. You're arrangement is prety tight--I definitely have no complaints there. You've shown some good insight in the way you've used such short riffs from the OST and looped them as the base work for your mix. Props on that. I'll get right to it, you're also correct as you predicted in your email that the production/mastering might be the downfall. I'm certainly not going to "shred" this one, though, but I am going to request that you bring the drums out. I'm fine with the kit/samples you've used, but they're way too far back in the mix. Try to give them a little more punch. And perhaps bring up the overall level just a bit. Seems like the whole track is being played over a distance. As far as instrumentation goes, I don't think I have any real qualms with your setup. Maybe I'd suggest more stereo separation in the electric guitar, and dropping that down a little, since the power chords are more for support anyway. Larry's right, the acoustic (which I really liked) gets shoved straight to the back during the loud parts. So that's pretty much it. This IS definitely a great candidate for resubmission, and I'd love to see this get posted. Just minor tweaks, and I think it'd be fine for the front page. I wish I had more time to offer feedback during the WIP stage, as I know I've already let a lot of people down that have asked for pre-sub-evaluation, but the fact is that I just simply don't have the time. I'm too far back on judging as it is. So basically, grab someone who you know has a good handle on how to mix and master levels, and maybe borrow some insight from them. Bring this one back soon, David. NO (please resubmit)

whoops, i apologize, bud. you iz now added! also--just celebrated my 2nd Anniversary yesterday

heh, there's not that many reviews lately, so it's really no fantastic feat to read each and every review as they come in mr. DS is trash dude, i don't even know you personally, so i'm not just trying to hate on you, but i gotta come clean. you're reviews are pretty lousy, bro. half the time, i'm not exactly sure what you're even saying. again, no offense intended here. also, if you don't like OLRemix, don't go there. people like different things--not everybody likes what you like. it's what makes the world go 'round. try not to let it bother you too much

I didn't vote on this last time around, so unfortunately, I have no knowledge or recollection of the 1st submission. I'll make this brief. There's some cool ideas in here, but unfortunately the production is really really quite below par. Like Larry said, and don't take offense, we all start somewhere, but you may want to spend some time reading up and practicing your mixing/mastering technique. Just some general things that need some TLC before this can get any closer to going on the front page: -Drums are waaaaaaaaaay too quiet. -Soundfield is waaaaaaaaaaay too cluttered -No real depth to the bass--just a lot of middle on the EQ -Too much going on, and too close to center. Needs more dynamic diversity and more stereo separation per different instruments etc. Work on those things first and foremost. It's not a bad thing to have lots going on, but you have to make sure everything is playing off of everything else, not all trying to shout over top of one another, so to say. Keep tweaking this one, bro. This is how we get better. Keep at it. NO

Well, liberal as it may be, I heard the source clearly (without having to micro-analyze) within the first 15 seconds, so that's always a relief. In the style of AeroZ, this is pretty funky and creative stuff. I really dig the guitar loops. Funky and fun and what not. Now then, after my recent ranting on tracks with questionable source-to-remix ratio, Other than the initial Green Hill zone riff which is clearly heard at :13 or so, and subsequently throughout the track, had it not been for the additional breakdown, I might have been inclined to spend hours more than I would like to sitting down and comparing, so kudos for the extra info--always helpful. I'm going to agree with Larry that more or less, as long as a track is >50% soundly tied to the source, it's going to fly with me on that level. I also question the silence in the beginning--is there really a purpose to that, or is that something we should crop first? Some other mix highlights were the bass, and pretty much the whole section around 1:07--which is fun as hell to listen to. This one slides by for the BGC thumb's-up. YES

Happy bday Tauce!